Population Scare Gets Less Scary: Fertility Rates Falling, Un Reports

November 17, 1996|By New York Times News Service.

NEW YORK — A new survey by the United Nations has found that the world's population is growing almost everywhere more slowly than expected even a few years ago. The study also found that the number of people being added to the world each year has begun to fall sooner than anticipated.

"The world's population is stabilizing sooner than we thought," said Joseph Chamie, director of the UN Population Division, which collects and analyzes population data. "We had some glimmer that this was occurring several years ago, but we weren't sure if it was simply a blip. Now we actually have concrete results showing this is a global trend."

The new population figures circulating among UN agencies will be published with analysis and commentary in book form early next year.

Chamie and other analysts say the family planning and other aid programs of the 1960s and 1970s are paying off. Those programs gave couples around the world more control over the number of children they had and were augmented by more recent programs to give women more economic power and social status.

But analysts caution that these gains could be reversed if foreign aid budgets continue to shrink and opposition to family planning programs and other aid intended to enhance women's rights restricts the activities of international agencies.

"There is no guarantee that these trends will be sustained," said Chamie, who is an American. "They could stagnate or switch back."

J. Brian Atwood, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, called the new figures heartening.

"The United States has been the world leader in family planning for more than three decades," he said. "The American people should feel proud of the contribution programs funded by their tax dollars have made in improving the lives of literally hundreds of millions of people around the world. The bitter irony is that recent shortsighted cuts in our population and development assistance programs represent a clear step backward."

Population declines also are explained, though to a lesser extent, by higher death rates, Chamie said. Wars and AIDS have reduced life expectancy in Africa. In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, life expectancy has declined.

The new UN figures, covering 1990 to 1995, show a population growth rate worldwide of 1.48 percent a year, significantly lower than the 1.57 percent projected by the previous report in 1994. The world therefore already has 29 million fewer people than expected.

In the same 1990-1995 period, fertility also declined, to an average of 2.96 children per woman. The projected figure had been 3.1. By 2050, UN analysts say, the world's population could be 9.4 billion, nearly half a billion lower than 1994 projections. The United Nations says there are now 5.77 billion people on earth.

World population figures, and why they change, can fuel passionate debate among demographers and policy makers. These statistics are no exception.

Critics of family planning, including Rep. Christopher Smith, (R-N.J.), who has led a campaign in Congress to cut American contributions to international family planning programs, say the money is finding its way into supporting abortion services.